As part of our periodic ‘Knowledge Sessions’, we asked our customer SPIE to introduce our people, who mainly work indoors, to the practice of installing and managing a FttH network. SPIE enthusiastically picked up on this and found two employees Marcel van der Doelen and Ron Smit willing to take us into the world of the fiber optic contractor, the network manager and the Network Operations Center (NOC).

Thomas Freriks – Senior Consultant Digitalization at Speerworks: “We started the morning with a visit to a CityPOP of E-Fiber (ODF) in Heesch where Marcel explained to us in detail how such a CityPoP is set up and what is involved to keep it in perfect condition. It’s not just about patching new connections, the equipment is monitored 24/7, the floor is swept regularly, the crawl space is kept clean, the fire extinguisher is inspected periodically and even the roof is cleared of leaves to prevent leaks. Great to see and learn.

As the second part of the visit, we visited an excavation crew that is installing fiber optic connections for newly built homes in a new housing development in Heesch. Always good to realize how hard these people are working to provide us with fast Internet and dozens of television channels. Good planning and digitization allow them to do this quickly and flawlessly, but the most important thing remains the expertise and experience of the (mostly) men in the trench.

Finally, we visited the NOC (Network Operations Center) where Spie monitors all of its customers’ fiber-optic networks 24/7, 365 days a year, solves malfunctions immediately, records damages (and recovers from the perpetrator). They do everything to ensure that the FttH network continues to work optimally. What struck us most was the access the Technical Specialists at the NOC have to dozens of systems to do the job properly.
Nowadays, the NOC not only manages fiber optic networks, but also performs monitoring of bridges, locks, charging stations, wind farms to bus charging stations in Australia.
In short: a healthy chaos where people quietly make sure the technical world keeps running day and night.

Thanks to Marcel and Ron, it was a fun, educational (and cold) morning!”

Spie has been a user of the asset registration and management system Cocon Fiber for many years.